The so-called 'Martin Harris letter' [the Salamander letter] is no repudiation of
Joseph Smith, but rather probably is a further witness of the Prophet's own account of the
discovery of the gold plates. (Deseret News, Church Section, Sept. 9, 1984)

I remember sitting in a sacrament meeting several days after Mark Hofmann had
confessed... I felt an overwhelming emotional and spiritual relief.... that white
salamander that had bedeviled me for so long at last was exorcised. I felt spiritual
channels once hindered and partly clogged renew themselves. (Professor Ronald W. Walker,
Brigham Young University, August 6, 1987)

"In the years that followed our first meeting Mr. Hofmann would
occasionally visit our bookstore and tell of the remarkable discoveries that he was
making. In the latter part of November 1983 I first heard that Mark Hofmann had a letter
which was supposed to have been written by Book of Mormon witness Martin Harris. It was
dated Oct. 23, 1830, and was addressed to W.W. Phelps. When I learned of the contents of
the letter, I realized that it could deal a devastating blow to the Mormon Church. Sandra
and I had previously written a book entitled, Mormonism, Magic and
Masonry. In this book we presented strong evidence that Joseph Smith was involved
in money-digging and magic. Martin Harris' letter seemed to provide new and exciting
evidence which supported our thesis. This letter is known as the Salamander letter because
Martin Harris was supposed to have written that Joseph Smith claimed when he went to get
the gold plates for the Book of Mormon, a 'white salamander' in the bottom of the hole
'transfigured himself' into a 'spirit' and 'struck me 3 times.'

"Fortunately, I was able to obtain some revealing extracts from
the letter and was preparing to print them in the March 1984 issue of the Messenger. I was
very excited that we at Utah Lighthouse Ministry would be the first to break this
important story to the world. While in the midst of compiling evidence to support the
authenticity of the Salamander letter, I made a discovery that shook me to the very core.
I found that the account of the transformation of the white salamander into the spirit was
remarkably similar to a statement E.D. Howe published in Mormonism Unvailed.
This book, written four years after the date which appears in the Harris letter, told of a
toad 'which immediately transformed itself into a spirit' and struck Joseph Smith.
Even more disconcerting, however, was the fact that other remarkable parallels to the
Salamander letter were found just two or three pages from the account of the
transformation of the toad into a spirit (see Mormonism Unvailed,
pages 273, 275 and 276).

"Some years before I had encountered similar evidence of
plagiarism in Joseph Smith's History of the Church. The Mormon Church leaders had
always proclaimed that this History was actually written by Joseph Smith
himself. My research, however, led me to the conclusion that the largest portion
of it had been compiled after his death. I found that later Mormon historians had taken
portions of newspapers and diaries written by other people and changed them to the first
person so that readers would believe that they were authored by Joseph Smith himself. In
agreement with my conclusions, Mormon scholars later admitted that over 60% of the Historywas compiled after Smith's death (see Mormonism-Shadow or
Reality? pages 127-135).

"In any case, parallels I had discovered between the Salamander
letter and Mormonism Unvailed
reminded me very much of the work I had done on Joseph Smith's History. Although
what I discovered about the Salamander letter was not conclusive proof that it was a
forgery, it was certainly suspicious. It seemed, in fact, to throw a real monkey wrench
into all my plans concerning the publication of the letter. Since I knew that it was very
unlikely that anyone else would spot these parallels and realize their significance, there
was some temptation to keep the matter to myself. I knew, however, that God knew what I
had seen, and I began to feel that He had shown me these unpleasant facts to warn me
against endorsing the letter. Furthermore, I knew that I would never be satisfied if my
case against Mormonism was based on fraudulent material. It was clear, therefore, that
there was only one course of action which I could followi.e., print the whole truth
in the Messenger. In the March 1984 issue, therefore, we raised the question of
forgery by printing the title, 'Is It Authentic?' Under this title we wrote:

" 'At the outset we should state that we have some
reservations concerning the authenticity of the letter, and at the present time we are not
prepared to say that it was actually penned by Martin Harris.... We will give the reasons
for our skepticism as we proceed with this article.' "

On August 25, 1984, John Dart wrote the following in the Los
Angeles Times: "The Tanners suggestion of forgery has surprised some Mormons,
who note that the parallels in wording also could be taken as evidence for
authenticity." The Deseret News for September 1, 1984, reported:
"...outspoken Mormon Church critics Jerald and Sandra Tanner suspect the document is
a forgery, they told the Deseret News.
"Jerald Tanner... says similarities between it and other documents
make its veracity doubtful."

In his confession Mark Hofmann finally admitted that the theory that
we had proposed in the March 1984 issue of the Salt Lake City Messenger for the
origin of the Salamander letter was indeed correct. As I have already indicated, we had
suggested that Howe's Mormonism
Unvailed could have been used and that the toad mentioned there was transformed
into a salamander. Mr. Hofmann not only confirmed this charge but went on to acknowledge
that he had a photographic reprint of Howe's book which was obtained from us:

Q. And then the language about "the spirit transfigured himself
from a white salamander in the bottom of the hole and struck me three times"?

A. Yes, there's a reference in Howe to Joseph Smith being struck. Also
I believe there are a couple other sources to that effect. People who claimed that Joseph
Smith had said that, that he was bodily prevented from receiving the plates.

Q. Now the white salamander, you were going to explain that?

A. I was only going to say that the idea for the White Salamander
derived from the toad in A. D. Howe's book. Salamander, from my reading of folk magic,
seemed more appropriate than a toad.

. . . . .

Q. What was your significance [sic] of what the significance the white
salamander had?

A. I don't believe I saw a reference to a white salamander, only a
salamander, but I decided to spice it up.

Q. What was the salamander supposed to mean? Why did you choose that
over the toad?

A. At the time I chose it only because it was commonly used in folk
magic. I didn't realize until later all the implications other people would associate with
it as far as being able to dwell in fire. I wasn't smart enough at the time to understand
all that, but it just happened to be important, or at least some people thought it was
important, the same way some people thought various things with the Anthon Transcript or
other forgeries were important when no importance were placed in it by me. People read
into it what they want or get out of it what they want. I know that really turned on Brent
Metcalf for example, and some of the other researchers.

Q. But you were aware that the salamander had some significance in
folk magic?

A. Yes, that's right.

. . . . .

Q. You mentioned Hale. [sic] Is that Mormonism Unveiled by a D. Hale
[E. D. Howe]?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you have a copy of that of your own?

A. I had a Xerox copy published by the Tanners.

Q. Is that similar to the one I have?

A. Yes.

Q. Could you find specifically any of the items in there that would
have been used by you as a source for any of these items?

A. I probably could but probably not very rapidly. If you want me to
take a copy of that and bring it back with some underlining or whatever, I will.

Q. Okay, I can let you have this. Let me just ask you. Well, I'll tell
you what

A. If you point it out I can probably identify that's what I used or
not. I believe there is a couple of references to the toad.

A. Yes, Willard Chase's testimony was the primary reference to the
toad which the author of the book later used.

Q. There is two places in there in reference to the toad.

A. Yes.

Q. In fact, it says on page 276, "which immediately transformed
itself into a spirit".

A. Yes. I thought the word, not wanting to sound like I was
plagiarizing from a book, I used the word transfigured rather than transformed.

Q. "And gave him a tremendous blow".

A. Yes.

Q. You made three blows out of it, struck him twice or three times I
think, rather than gave a tremendous blow?

A. Again, I didn't want to sound like I was copying it word for word.

Q. Now another one here, on page 274, he quotes, supposedly a letter
from Howe, excuse me from Phillips [W. W. Phelps] to Howe.

A. Oh, yes.

Q. Are you familiar with that letter?

A. Yes, this letter I believe had the source for the, yes, the
shorthand Egyptian. The idea being that if Phillips [sic], who was the recipient of the
forged Martin Harris letter, Salamander Letter, in speaking of Martin Harris's episode
with the Anthon Transcript. If he described the handwriting in shorthand Egyptian that he
would have acquired that knowledge from the forged letter or in other words, it was a
validation for the letter. This would have been, this letter of Phillips to Howe would
have been approximately three months after he had received the forged letter, the Martin
letter.

(Hofmann's Confession, pages 440, 441, 444-446)

Mark Hofmann does not remember a specific source for the
salamanderonly that he learned about it when reading something with regard to magic.
At first I felt that he may have found it in the A. C. Lambert papers at the University of
Utah Library. On pages 456-57 of his confession, Mr. Hofmann testified that he "had
access" to the Lambert collection but "it wasn't around this [time]." He
remembered using Lambert's papers for his work on the Anthon transcript, but could not
recall using them for the Salamander letter. Since Mr. Hofmann claimed that he did
research in both "pro and anti-Mormon" books in writing the Salamander letter
(p. 433), I now feel that it is very likely that he obtained our book, Mormonism, Magic and
Masonry, which was published the same year that he penned the Salamander letter.
On page 23 we quoted the following from the book Crystal-Gazing, by Theodore
Besterman:

"Sir Walter Scott says that the old astrologers affirmed that
they could bind to their service, and imprison in a ring, a mirror, or a stone,
some fairy, sylph or salamander, and compel it to appear when called, and
render answers to such questions as the viewer should propose."

Since this unusual quotation links salamanders to seer stones, it
could very well be the reference that spawned the salamander in the White Salamander
letter. In Appendix A of Tracking, I also
suggested that Mark Hofmann could have read E. T. A. Hoffmann's story "The Golden
Flower Pot," which was reprinted in the book, The Best Tales of Hoffmann.
This story has some interesting parallels to the Salamander letter.

In any case, it is interesting to note that on August 16, 1985, the
Mormon Apostle Dallin Oaks tried to ease the fears of Mormon educators with regard to the
Salamander letter by claiming that the words "white salamander" could be
reconciled with Joseph Smith's statement about the appearance of the Angel Moroni:

"Another source of differences in the accounts of different
witnesses is the different meanings that different persons attach to words. We have a
vivid illustration of this in the recent media excitement about the word 'salamander' in a
letter Martin Harris is supposed to have sent to W.W. Phelps over 150 years ago. All of
the scores of media stories on that subject apparently assume that the author of that
letter used the word 'salamander' in the modern sense of a 'tailed amphibian.'

"One wonders why so many writers neglected to reveal to their
readers that there is another meaning of 'salamander,' which may even have been the
primary meaning in this context in the 1820s.... That meaning... is 'a mythical being
thought to be able to live in fire.'...

"A being that is able to live in fire is a good approximation
of the description Joseph Smith gave of the Angel Moroni:... the use of the words white
salamander and old spirit seem understandable.

"In view of all this, and as a matter of intellectual
evaluation, why all the excitement in the media, and why the apparent hand-wringing among
those who profess friendship or membership in the Church?" ("1985 CES Doctrine
and Covenants Symposium," pages 22-23)

Dallin Oaks' conjecture concerning the real meaning of the word
"salamander" certainly shows the lengths Mormon apologists will go to try and
explain away anything that challenges Mormonism. Oaks would have us believe that the news
media suppressed the true meaning of the word. Actually, the news media were claiming that
the context of the letter showed that the "salamander" mentioned there referred
to one of the "elemental spirits" of magic. The confession of Mark Hofmann makes
it clear that Oaks was way off base and that the news media were right all along. The
reader will remember that when he was speaking of the word "salamander," Hofmann
said: "At the time I chose it only because it was commonly used in folk magic. I
didn't realize until later all the implications other people would associate with it as
far as being able to dwell in fire." (Hofmann's Confession, page 441)

However this may be, in the March 1984 issue of the Salt Lake
City Messenger, we mentioned a parallel between the Salamander letter and Joseph
Knight's account of the discovery of the gold plates of the Book of Mormon. In later
issues we pointed out many significant parallels between the two documents. Since the
Joseph Knight account was locked up in the LDS Historical department and was not published
until 1976, we felt that this provided strong evidence that the Salamander letter was a
modern forgery. If we could have believed that the forgery had been done many years ago,
then we would not have been so suspicious of Mark Hofmann. As it was, however, the
evidence seemed to point toward Mark Hofmann. We reasoned that if he was not guilty of the
forgery, he probably knew who the person was who had done it. In chapter
1 of Tracking, I listed 7 parallels to the
Joseph Knight account, and in Appendix A, I quoted the
following from The Money-Digging Letters, published in 1984:

"Knight's account was published by Dean Jessee in BYU
Studies, Autumn 1976, pages 29-39. According to Jessee, it was not written for at
least three years after the 'Harris' letter was supposed to have been penned. In examining
the complete transcript of the letter, we see more striking parallels to this document.
For instance, the Knight account quotes Joseph Smith as saying that in the Urim and
Thummim he 'can see any thing' (p. 33) The Salamander letter likewise
says that Joseph 'can see anything' in his 'stone.' The Knight account
says that after Smith found the 'Book' (the gold plates), he 'laid [it] Down'
to 'Cover the place over' (p. 31). The wording in the
letter is similar: 'I lay it down to cover over the hole.' We have
already pointed out in the Messenger that both accounts use the identical words,
'Joseph says when can I have it.' In both accounts the plates are taken
away from Smith because he laid them down. The Salamander letter and the Knight account
also agree that Joseph was commanded to bring his brother Alvin when he returned for the
plates. The Knight account says that 'his oldest Brother Died' before it was time to come
again for the plates. In the 'Harris' letter, Joseph says, 'my brother is dead.' In both
stories Joseph goes back to the place where the plates were deposited. The Knight account
says that he was told that he 'Could not have it.' The Salamander letter
likewise says he 'cannot have it.' In both cases Joseph does not know who
to bring with him to obtain the plates. The Knight version says that 'he looked
in his glass and found it was Emma Hale.' The Salamander letter also identified Emma as
the person he sees in the stone: 'the spirit says I tricked you again look to the stone
Joseph looked & sees his wife.' Both accounts go on to tell of Smith putting the
sacred instrument into a hat to translate the Book of Mormon....

"Another thing we noticed in the Knight account that could have
had an influence on the Salamander letter is the use of the words 'says he' and 'says I.'
On page 37, as published in BYU Studies, we find the following: 'Says
he,... Says he,... Says I.... Says I.... Says he.' In the 'Harris' letter we
read: '...says he... says he... says I... says I...' "

Prosecutors questioned Mark Hofmann concerning the Joseph Knight
account and he confirmed that he used it for structural material in the Salamander letter:

Q. Now on another occasion you told us that you also were familiar
with Joseph Knight's recollection of early Mormon history?

A. Yes.

Q. Is that another one that you would have read in preparation for
this?

A. Yes.

Q. Where would you have got if [sic] from?

A. It would have been from the actual handwritten account, a Xerox
which I had.

Q. And you obtained that from the archives?

A. Yes. I believe the original is in the archives of the Church.

(Hofmann's Confession, pages 447-448)

On pages 508-509, Mark Hofmann testified as follows:

A. Oh, I read through Joseph Knight's account and had a couple other
comments to make about that. These are parallels between his account and the Salamander
Letter. Joseph Knight describes how Joseph Smith set the plates down and discovered they
had been taken away from him on his first attempt to obtain them. He also describes,
Joseph Knight also describes how Joseph Smith discovered who to bring in obtaining the
plates by looking at the glass or at the stone, as I call it, or as it is called in the
Salamander Letter. And also Joseph Knight and the Salamander Letter both describe Joseph
Smith's translation process in that he had a stone, the seer's stone in his hand and the
words or letters appeared.

Q. Are you telling us then that you were aware of that Joseph Knight
letter and used some of that information in composing the information in the Salamander
Letter?

A. That's correct.

Another item I listed as having parallels to the Salamander letter
was an interview with Martin Harris published in Tiffany's
Monthlyin 1859 (see
Tracking, Salamander letter analysis). On page 467 of his confession, Mark
Hofmann said that he was aware of this interview and might have used it.

In the Messenger for March 1984 we noted that the
Salamander letter seemed to suggest that Joseph Smith talked of bringing his dead
brother's remains to the Hill Cumorah so that the spirit would give him the gold plates.
We pointed out that this could be related to a rumor that "Alvin's body had been
disinterred":

"On September 29, 1824, just one week after Joseph Smith was
supposed to have been visited by the Angel at the Hill Cumorah, his father printed the
following in the Wayne Sentinel, the local newspaper:

" 'WHEREAS reports have been industriously put in circulation that my son
Alvin had been removed from the place of his interment and dissected,... for the purpose
of ascertaining the truth of such reports, I, with some of my neighbors, this morning
[Sept. 25] repaired to the grave, and removing the earth, found the body which had not
been disturbed.' " (Wayne Sentinel, Sept. 29, 1824)

(Salt Lake City Messenger, March 1984, pages 3-4)

In his confession, pages 441-42, Mark Hofmann gave this testimony:

Q. What about [the part of the letter which says], "shall I bring
what remains", talking about Alvin?

A. Part of that was from my own imagination and part was from a story
that Well, actually a couple different stories that I tied together. One being that
an advertisement which Joseph Smith, Jr. placed in the Wayne Centinnel [sic] asking people
who initiated rumors to the effect that Alvin's body had been desecrate[d] would cease and
desist. Did I say that right? And there was also a story that Alvin, or rumor, that Alvin
was involved, was the magician of the family before his death.

In chapter 5Tracking, under A Master Forger?, I reported concerning
evidence that a number of Mark Hofmann's documents includingthe Salamander
letterhad been cut from larger sheets of paper:

"George Throckmorton testified that some of the Hofmann
documents seemed to have been cut with scissors or a razor blade. According to Mr.
Throckmorton, this problem was detected in the following way: 'By placing the paper on a
flat surface, and by putting a straight edge of some type on top of that and examining it
under a microscope, you can see how close the edge of the paper would correspond with the
straight edge. It would also be possible to detect, many times, individual scissor marks
or razor blade cuts or things similar to this.' ...With regard to the Salamander letter,
Throckmorton commented: 'This document had been cut.' "

In his confession, page 243, Mark Hofmann explained that "End
pages or the blank pages at the beginning and ends of the books were used for the
so-called Salamander Letter, the 1829 letter of Lucy Mack Smith and the Josiah Stoal 1825
letter of Joseph Smith." In relating the details of how he forged the Salamander
letter, Hofmann revealed that he was trying to disguise the fact that he was using a sheet
of paper from a book by drawing lines on it so that it would appear to be machine lined
paper:

Q. Where did you get the paper for this document?

A. I believe it came from theIt certainly came from a book at
the University of Utah Library, I believe from the Niles Register.

Q. What about the lines on the paper?

A. I forged those with a pen.

Q. You drew them?

A. Yes.

Q. Was it with the same kind of ink as you used to write with or
something different?

A. Yes, I believe so, although it would have been much watered down.

Q. Why did you put the lines on it? Any particular reason?

A. To make it appear to be writing paper rather than an end sheet.
This was around the time period that lined paper started to be used fairly commonly.

Q. Do you remember cutting the paper?

A. Yes.

Q. Was that when you took it out of the document or out of the book or
after?

A. It would have been after the lines were drawn on it.

Q. Why did you cut it?

A. Well, the sides of it I would have cut because if it would not have
been cut you would have been able to see on the sides of the paper, ink from the drawing
of the lines which would not have appeared on a genuine ruled sheet. I remember that I
would have cut the sides but I don't remember if I cut the top. Well, I'm sure I would
have cut the top and the bottom also.
(Hofmann's Confession, pages 457-460)

Mark Hofmann claimed that the wax seal which he added to the
Salamander letter came from "a genuine folded letter." (p. 461)

Document experts testified that the Salamander letter had
"surface cracking of the ink" (see chapter
6, Salamander Letter) which indicated that the ink had been artificially
aged. Mr. Hofmann confessed that the ink was probably aged with ammonia:

Q. Do you remember what kind of ink pen you used?

A. Steel pen.

Q. What about the aging process?

A. Probably would have been ammonia.

Q. Do you remember anything particular about this document that would
have been different than the aging process of any other document?

A. It is somewhat mildewed. I would have used bread mold in places to
cause the spotting. For example, looking at the address leaf side around the bottom left
hand corner area

. . . . .

Q. Anything else you remember doing as far as the creation process
goes?

A. I should point out that the handwriting I adopted from the
formation of the letters in the signature. It was a fairly common type of a writing style
at the time period.

Q. I'll go in to the handwriting in just a minute. What about the
stamp?

A. The stamp would have been made by myself, I believe.

Q. When you say you believe, you don't have an independent memory?

A. I'm certain it would have been made by myself. I'm just trying to
think of how I would have made this one.

Q. How did you make it?

A. It was some sort of a plate. It was, I'm quite certain it was a
copper plate. The postmark itself would have been photographed off of a genuine folded
cover.

Q. You made the plate?

A. Yes, I made the plate.

Q. And you made the plate in your house?

A. Yes.

Q. From what materials?

A. It would have been made in my garage, actually. Another piece of
copper plate, some photoresist in an aerosol and developer. Ferric chloride solution to
etch the plate.

Q. You made you own negative?

A. Let's see, what was the date? This was in '84.

Q. You sold it January 6 of '84.

A. Yes, I believe I made my own negative.

A. Just to protect myself, let me tell you another possibility for how
I would have made the postmark.

Q. We don't want you to protect yourself, we just want you to tell us
what happened.

A. That's what I'm saying. I am not positively sure how I made that
plate. The other possibility would have been that I had the artwork from the original
postmark, from the original folded cover. That I photocopied that onto a piece of plastic
for a transparency. That I used a positive rather than a negative photoresist which would
have made the letters or the, what appears to be the impression of the postmark, sunk
within the plate rather than sticking up from it, and then I would have used a piece of
silly putty that I would have smashed in to that plate after it was developed and etched.
And then put the silly putty onto a piece of glass in which I rolled the ink, and then
presses that into the paper, on to the paper.

Q. So you made your own stamp?

A. Yes, it would have been my own stamp made that way.

Q. You did it both ways is what you're saying?

A. Yes. And what I'm saying is I can't remember exactly how I made
this. It would have been one of those two techniques which were the only two techniques I
used to make postmarks.

Q. Also in yourDo you remember getting any letters with Palmyra
postmarks that you would have used is the sample for this one?

A.Yes.

Q. Where would you have got them from?

A. Probably would have come from Courtney Covers.

Q. Let's talk about the handwriting. How did you make a determination
of what style you were going to use?

A. The signature of Martin Harris was in a style, early 19th Century
style that I had seen other writers use.

Q. At that time, before you wrote it, did you try to obtain samples of
Martin Harris' handwriting?

A. I obtained signatures, I believe three signatures of Martin Harris
was all that I could find.

Q. Do you know where those, do you remember where they came from?

A. I'm certain they came from the Church Historian's Office.

(Hofmann's Confession, pages 462-465, 467-468)

Mark Hofmann also gave these interesting details about the
Salamander letter:

Q. Let's go on to the Salamander Letter. Of course, that was sold
January 6th, 1984. Can you tell us just when the idea started to come in your mind and how
it was that idea came and what your intentions were?

A. I can't remember the details as far as how it all came into my mind
except in generalities. I knew that Martin Harris' handwriting was very illusive. In fact,
that only signatures were known. I knew that he was fairly superstitious in his beliefs,
meaning that he believed in both magic and legends.

Q. Do you remember where you got those ideas from?

A. It would have been from my reading about him.

Q. Anything special or just general memory?

A. I believe the stories about his superstitiousness mostly came from
anti-Mormon sources that were printed early in the history of the Church. Such statements
as that he had stood up on a bar, I believe, in a tavern or something and said that Christ
was to return within a matter of months or something to that effect, and also talking
about various supernatural occurrences. Possibly from Howe's book, but I can't remember
the exact sources for all of that. A lot of the research I did for the letter was from
various history books, Church books, both pro and anti-Mormon.

Q. Let me ask you this: Did you have an idea in mind what you wanted
to do, then do research or did you do research to come up with the idea?

A. No, I came up with the idea first. Most of the research I did was
with his interviews and writings to try to come up with a speaking or writing style which
he might have used by comparing various interviews done by different people and various
publications in which he supposedly wrote. I was trying to come up with parallels between
them which would indicate what was his style and what was the different interviewers' or
reporters' style. As I remember, there were several newspaper interviews which I looked
at. Most of this research was done in the Church Historian's Office.

Q. How long did you do your investigation?

A. This brings up another point I should have brought out earlier, and
that is that a lot of the investigation that I did was not exclusively for one project or,
in other words, I sometimes researched several possibilities at the same time. Some of my
research for some of the forgeries was done just exclusively for that forgery, where I
devoted my full effort and attention into gathering information on that subject as rapidly
as possible and then committing the forgery within days. I believe with this item I had
the idea in mind, and it was rather stewing in any [sic] head for quite a while before I
actually sat down and decided to write it. Therefore, as far as how long it took me,
probably off and on for a number of months in between when I first thought of the idea and
when I actually did the forgery. As far as when I actually decided to sit down and write
it and do it, it would have just been within a day or two. Very rapidly.

Q. Are you saying though that to get the contents and writing down,
you would write a sentence or phrase down, maybe in your own handwriting and get it worked
out before you actually sat down and wrote it in Harris's handwriting?

A. Yes, I would have done that. I would have composed it before
sitting down and trying to imitate his handwriting or what I supposed his handwriting
m[a]y look like. But that would have all been within a day or two. In other words, I may
have done the research over quite a long period of time but when I finally decided to sit
down and write it I would have composed it and forged it all within a day or two. It
wouldn't have been over any extended length of time as far as a week or so. It wouldn't
have been that long. I would guess that I would have composed it and then forged it within
the same day or maybe two days, like I say.
(Hofmann's Confession, pages 432-436)

The reader may remember that a few months before the bombings a
story was put forth that the Mormon Church had a secret document known as the Oliver
Cowdery history which supported the Salamander letter. We became suspicious that the
mysterious source of this report might be Hofmann himself. In the August 1985 issue of the
Salt Lake City Messenger, we suggested that Hofmann might be the "Deep
Throat" who leaked the information. In Appendix A
of Tracking, I noted that an "interesting parallel between the Salamander
letter and the account given by 'Deep Throat' of the discovery of the gold plates in the
Cowdery history is that the word plates is missing in both. The Salamander letter
says that the 'old spirit' told Joseph Smith to 'dig up the gold.' The anonymous source
claimed that the Cowdery history 'said that Alvin located the buried gold.' "

In his testimony, Mark Hofmann frankly admitted that he "was
the deep throat... described in the media" who pretended to have access to the secret
Oliver Cowdery history. Hofmann was questioned as follows concerning the Cowdery history:

Q. Was it during this time that you were talking to him [Brent
Metcalfe] about Alvin or would that have been a little later?

A. It would have been a little later that I introduced the story of,
let's see, that I introduced the story as far as Alvin preceding Joseph Smith and the
alleged reference in the First Presidency's vault of a history of Alvin [i. e., the Oliver
Cowdery history]. That would have been later.

Q. How much later, do you remember?

A. Probably a few months later after Steve Christensen purchased this
letter.

Q. Is there anything to that story?

A. No.

Q. Is that all a creation of yours?

A. That's pure creation.

Q. And besides telling Metcalf you told some other people, didn't you?

A. I believe I told, well I know I told it to, let's see, Lynn Jacobs.
I may have told Shannon Flynn but I can't remember having told anyone else.

Q. How about a reporter, L. A. Times?

A. Oh, of course, yes.

Q. Who would that be?

A. Yes, I was the deep throat or however I was described in the media.
That would have been

MR. RICH: That was John P.

MR. STOTT: Was it Dart?

A. Yes, I think it would have been John Dart is his name. Do you want
me to go in to that now? As long as we are talking about it I may as well.

Dart was contacted by Metcalf and told that an inside source named
Limy had access to some materials in the First Presidency's vault and was willing to make
a statement concerning Alvin's involvement in this early Church record in first having
contact with the Angel Moroni or whoever. And thwarted because of his death from obtaining
the plates and then Joseph took over, type of deal.

Dart flew into Salt Lake. Metcalf and he, myself had lunch one
afternoon at, I can't think of the name of the restaurant. At the sandwich shop of
some sort, hamburger place. We then went to a park where we sat down at a table, picnic
table, and I told him this fabrication. It is purely made up. It's not based on anything I
saw in the First Presidency's office or elsewhere.

Q. My next question would be, had you ever seen anything or ever been
invited in to the First Presidency's vault?

A. No. I saw some materials from the First Presidency's vault but I've
never set foot in to the vault.

Q. Some things were brought out and showed to you?

A. Right.

Q. The Oliver Cowdery [history] was made up by you?

A. Right.

Q. Never saw it in the First Presidency's vault or anywhere?

A. Right.

Q. How did you come up with the story?

A. There was a footnote in a book, I believe by Joseph Fielding Smith,
where he discussed something about that history and said that it was in the possession of
the Church. That has been interpreted by people to mean that there's some other history. I
can't remember all the details but that was the original, that was the source of the idea.

Q. Why did you make the story up?

A. For a couple of reasons. First of all, I remember distinctly when I
did make it up we were eating at Wendy's. Indigestion, perhaps. And I first talked about
it actually out of amusement. It wasn't anything I had previously thought of, I just kind
of evolved into it, to keep them interested. One thing about Metcalf is he's always
interested in these little hidden rumors or truths or whatever. And I noticed I could
throw out a little thing to wet his appetite and he would always be after me for more and
more information. So I would just make it up as we went along.

Q. Why did you go to John Dart and why did you not go to a reporter
and publish it?

A. I didn't. My intention wasn't to have that happen but Metcalf,
although I swore him to secrecy at the time, somehow word of this Oliver Cowdery history
got out and he brought John Dart into it or whatever. Let's see, I said there were a
couple reasons for the story. The other, obviously, would have been that part of the
Oliver Cowdery History was there was a white salamander as far as Alvin's involvement and
that would have validated the history presented in the forged Salamander Letter.

Q. Again made up by you?

A. Again made up by me. One forged idea to validate another forged
idea.

Q. Not only then the whole thing was made up but you were aware by
people recounting this story it was causing, I suppose, some considerable embarrassment to
the LDS authorities?

A. Yes.

Q. But you went along with it to the point of giving an interview.
What were your feelings during this time? Why were you doing that?

A. As far as my feelings, there was actually a mixture of emotions.
One of which was amusement for the whole idea. As far as the embarrassment to the Church,
it is true that it was embarrassing but I was also interested to see how the Church would
react to the situation. As far as giving the interview, I ended up consenting but I did it
reluctantly feeling that once the story got out I was kind of, just like a lot of these
other frauds, it was almost like I ended up getting dragged along with my own creation to
past where I wanted to. I don't know how to best describe that, but a lot of these events
were rather an evolution rather than plotting in advance how I would respond to a
situation. I just, it kind of just evolved in to that. There wasn't a lot of times, there
wasn't a lot of Like I remember, for example, we were he [sic] eating at Wendy's.
The idea wasn't to get this public, just to get Metcalf interested or wet his appetite or
get him excited about it or whatever.

Q. Lunch conversation?

A. Right. And it kind of evolved. The idea at that time wasn't how I
can use this to leak this to the press and use this to validate the Salamander Letter or
anything like that. That wasn't my initial thought.

(Hofmann's Confession, pages 451-456)

In chapter 1 of Tracking,
under A Confrontation, I printed
some very revealing testimony by Mark Hofmann's friend, Lyn Jacobs and then commented:
"It is now evident that both Lyn Jacobs and Mark Hofmann conspired to hide the truth
concerning the origin of the Salamander letter. If Jacobs had knowledge that the letter
was forged, he would be as guilty as Hofmann of 'THEFT BY DECEPTION.' Investigators have
apparently not found any hard evidence to that effect. Otherwise, they would have filed
charges against him." In his testimony, Mark Hofmann tells how he worked with Lyn
Jacobs to create a false story concerning the origin of the Salamander letter and their
attempt to sell it to the Mormon Church:

Q. Do you remember when you actually made it? What month? You sold it
January 6th. In relationship to when you sold it when did you actually manufacture the
document?

A. If you can find out Lynn Jacob's travel arrangements, he came to
Salt Lake City in either December or January. Well it would have been in December, I
believe he came here for Christmas. It would have been the day before he arrived that I
actually forged it as far as writing it out and aging it or whatever was taking place the
day before he arrived in Salt Lake.

Q. But you talked to Lynn about it beforehand?

A. Yes, I had talked to him about it before it was written or forged.

Q. Tell us the chronology of events in talking with Lynn about it.

A. I believe that part of itI can't remember. I think that just
a couple days before he arrived in Salt Lake I read him familiar parts of it necessarily
which would have been there, my composition of it before I had actually written it in
Martin Harris' handwriting. Before that, perhaps a week or two before I told him about it.

Q. Did you tell him why you wanted him to offer it as his document?

A. As I remember, it was actually his idea or his suggestion, although
I probably anticipated doing it beforehand. He felt like he could obtain more from the
Church. That is at this time we were thinking of offering it to the Mormon Church, than I
would be able to.

Q. Had he had any dealings with the Mormon Church?

A. Yes. He was always rather proud of the fact that he could obtain
quite a bit in his dealing with Don Schmidt.

Q. Wasn't his dealings mainly with the archivist?

A. Yes.

Q. Your dealings had actually been with some of the general
authorities?

A. Right.

Q. Why did he believe he could get more than you then?

A. My feeling was in offering it to the general authorities if I were
to do it it would appear to be almost a blackmail type of attempt just because of the
content of the letter and potential embarrassment to the Church, that I wanted to stay
away from. He didn't have any of those feelings as far as if he offended them.

Q. Was there any concern on your part that this was maybe one too many
documents foryou to discover and let somebody else take the credit?

A. Yes. That was also in my mind. Yes, I remember also thinking of
that fact.

Q. Did you tell Lynn at that time where you found the document?

A. I don't believe that I was specific other than a cover dealer or
direct source.

Q. Where did your story come up that he used that he was the one that
actually went to the place and actually looked in drawers and actually bought it himself?
Is that a story you two came up with? Was it your idea? His idea? How did that come up?

A. The idea was that he actually bought it from a dealer. It's hard to
say as far as how we actually came up with that idea but that was the original idea. Since
he was going to be offering it as his own document he had to be the one to have made the
discovery or whatever.

Q. Your agreement was it was yours but he was going to pose as if he
were the finder-owner?

A. That's correct. And I think my involvement is we told other people
was that the source where he obtained it was mine. That he had made an agreement with me
in looking for these documents while he was back east, that since it was my idea and my
source that we would share 50/50 the, any profits that we made. And I think that's what we
told other people.

Q. Let's leave Lynn aside just one second and get back to your
motivations. What was the purpose for coming up with the Salamander Letter?

A. Money. It's a controversial type document, therefore it would be
valuable and it was also, again somewhat of an experiment to see the Church's reaction as
far as, that always interested me.

Q. Reaction in what way?

A. As far as how they would handle it, if they would purchase it, if
they would trust him enough, Lynn enough to keep his mouth shut. To enter into some sort
of agreement to keep it confidential. If they would pay his exorbitant price he was
demanding for it. Their reaction as far as what the contents were, any comments that might
be made concerning it.

Q. Do you consider this to be your most extreme document as far as
controversy, as far as the contents?

A. In ways. In ways I considered the Josiah Stoal Letter to be more
controversial since it was actually in Joseph Smith's handwriting rather than a second
hand account. The Blessing document, doctrinally was also controversial but this is
ait's obviously a controversial document, more so with the media's help.

Q. Did you see yourself moving toward the creation of more
controversial documents, more involved in the folk magic? Was it a conscious effort on
your part?

A. No, never. Well, it was just like with the creation of the Anthon
Transcript. After that I told myself, now I can't forge any more Mormon documents because
I don't want to be suspicious. After creating the Josiah Stoal Letter I told myself the
same thing, no more magic type documents.

Q. When Lynn came in December was your idea at that time to sell it to
the Church?

A. Yes.

Q. When you created the document was it your idea to sell it to the
Church?

A. Yes.

Q. Lynn went ahead and tried to sell it first?

A. That's right. What do you mean he tried? Yes, under my direction.

Q. And you had a price determined?

A. Lynn's price was higher than I thought appropriate but he was
determined to get as much out of it as he thought he could.

Q. How was it he went right to Hinkley? He hadn't dealt with Hinkley
before, had he?

A. No.

Q. Did it surprise you when Lynn came back and said Hinkley wouldn't
buy it?

A. No, not given the price that Lynn was asking for it.

Q. Now with the Stoal Letter, you were aware that he bought the Stoal
Letter and it pretty well had been publicized?

A. That's right.

Q. Now, were you at all surprised that he refused to buy the
Salamander Letter which was a very similar type document?

A. No. Like I say, a lot of it was almost like an experiment, in my
mind as far as what his reaction would be. Lynn doesn't come across as being a faithful
Mormon like I do.

Q. You did?

A. Or at least like I pretended to. I didn't think that President
Hinkley would trust his silence or that he would appreciate Lynn's manner, or boastfulness
or whatever. Although I speculate, well, you probably don't want speculation since there
is no backing for it so I won't speculate.

Q. Well, if it is germane to the topic go ahead, as long as you
preface it by speculation.

A. I speculate if I would have been the one to offer it that it would
have had the same fate as the Stoal Letter [i. e., be suppressed by the Mormon Church].

Q. Would you have asked the same thing or different?

A. I wouldn't have asked for nearly the price.

(Hofmann's Confession, pages 469-477)

Mark Hofmann goes on to allege something that has never been
revealed beforei. e., that after Lyn Jacobs' offer was refused, Hofmann himself
talked with the church about a secret deal in which Lyn Jacobs could be sworn to secrecy
so that the Salamander letter could be suppressed:

Q. Lynn comes back, it's not sold. What do you do?

A. I went to, let's see, I'm trying to think of if before Lynn went to
Hinkley if he went to Don Schmidt with it or went to him just afterwards. But I believe it
was the next day Don Schmidt knew about it from Lynn or the next day with Lynn's meeting
with President Hinkley and that morning I believe I told Don Schmidt that I could obtain
complete control over it and would be willing to sell it to the Church for a price. I
can't remember, I would get 10 or 15 thousand dollars. Don Schmidt told me that he would
check with his superiors.
That same afternoon, in a meeting with Don Schmidt again, he told me
that he had talked with G. Homer Durham and I believe higher up, and that they would make
that purchase. I told Don Schmidt that I believed that it could be handled confidentially
and that Lynn could be sworn to secrecy. I told him that in the morning. Later, it would
have been in a day or two, whenever, we had made contact with Steve Christensen and he had
agreed to buy it and if, if we wanted to sell itLet's see, I'm trying to get the
sequence right, chronology. I believe it was actually before. I believe it was with the
statement that if the Church would prefer we could see that it was sold to a faithful
member of the Church. If they didn't wantwhich I spoke very frankly with Don Schmidt
about this but I didn't talk to anyone higher up than Don Schmidt. That if the Church was
afraid of the publicity of the document now that Lynn knew about it and possibly others,
that we could arrange to have it sold to a faithful member who we thought would keep it
quiet or handle it the way the Church thought would be appropriate but yet not having the
Church officially making decisions.

Q. Did he get back to you, Schmidt?

A. After originally it was agreed the Church would make the purchase
for the money that I asked, I can't remember the exact sum. But then later, I mean it was
a day or two later, in talking with his superiors he told me that they thought it would,
it might be more appropriate to have that happen to it as far as a faithful member making
the purchase. I told him that I would keep him posted as far as the negotiation with this
faithful member.

Q. No names given?

A. I think at that time the name of Steve Christensen might have even
been given, although it wasn't that next day I talked to him.

Q. That name came from you?

A. Yes, I believe so, although, it's hard for me to say because I am
told that sometime during this period Steve Christensen had already been in contact with
the Church so I'm only giving my side, how I know it from my own experience.

. . . . .

A. My first contact with the Don Schmidt, I believe it was the day
after Lynn made contact with President Hinkley and I believe that same day the decision
was given, later that afternoon, that he would make the purchase.

MR. STOTT: What I'm getting at, from the time that you first contacted
Lynn to this point, who all knew about it? Lynn, you, perhaps Hinkley and perhaps Schmidt?

A. Earl Olsen, G. Homer Durham.

(Hofmann's Confession, pages 477-480)

In his testimony at the preliminary hearing, Lyn Jacobs said that he
asked Gordon B. Hinckley to give him a gold coin valued at "60,000 to over 100,000
dollars" in exchange for the letter (see Appendix A).
When President Hinckley would not agree to that, he suggested a trade for a Book of
Commandments. This offer was also turned down. Besides the high price which Jacobs asked,
the fact that word concerning the 1825 Joseph Smith letter had leaked out may have
discouraged Hinckley from trying to suppress the letter. He undoubtedly reasoned that if
the church did purchase the Salamander letter, there would be no way to be certain that
Jacobs would not talk about it or retain a photograph. An unsuccessful attempt to suppress
the letter, of course, would be more damaging to the church than for the church to buy the
letter and publish it to the world. Church leaders apparently did not feel that they could
"trust his silence," and it was decided that Steven Christensen, who had a
reputation of being friendly to the church leaders, should buy the letter for $40,000. In
1985 Christensen donated the letter to the Mormon Church.

If the church leaders had actually bought the letter to suppress it,
they could have found themselves in a very compromising situation. While Mark Hofmann has
testified that he originally created the Salamander letter to sell to the church, before
Jacobs was sent to talk to President Hinckley, Hofmann had considered breaking the news
about the letter in a major newspaper like the New York Times. During this time
of uncertainty, Mr. Hofmann allowed H. Michael Marquardt to make a partial typescript of
the Salamander letter. Hofmann testified as follows:

A. Sometime during this time periodNo, during that time period
no one.

Q. When was it you told Michael Marquardt?

A. That would have been after. Let's see, I was going to say I thought
that was after Steve Christensen made the purchase but I'm not sure if that was really
true or not. See, I wasn't keeping this confidential since I knew Lynn was going about it,
I figured it would get around and everything. There's a chance I told Marquardt before
Steve Christensen purchased it.

Q. Did there come a time you actually gave him a transcript of it?

A. Yes, he made a transcript of it but I can't remember the date when
that would have been.

Q. Why were you doing this? You knew Marquardt was going to go public?

A. Yes, I think at the time I told him to keep it quiet for the time
being and I believe he agreed to that until it became public.

Q. Was your agreement with Steve Christensen and semi with the Church,
something to the effect that, you know, it was going to be, the contents or even the idea
that there was a letter would remain private with them?

A. Yes.

Q. But nevertheless you were still talking to people like Marquardt
about the letter?

A. I can't remember when I talked to Marquardt so it's hard for me to
say if I talked to him after agreeing to not talk about it, or not. Although I'm sure that
date could be had as far as when I talked to Marquardt. He keeps good records, as we know.

Q. There came a time whenDid you learn that there was some
interest by other people in this?

A. Let's see. Now I think about it I think I did talk to Marquardt
before it was offered to the Church or to Steve Christensen. I believe that I, because I
know that I talked to Ashworth before it was offered to Christensen and I believe I also
talked to Marquardt before I talked to Christensen. I believe, but I can't say for
certain.

MR. STOTT: Did you want to make a statement, Mark, before we
proceed?

A. Yes. Before we ended last times meeting we were talking about what
I told Steve Christensen concerning who had seen or had access or copies or whatever of
the Salamander Letter. I'm quite certain now, thinking about it, that Mike Marquardt had
made a partial transcript of the Salamander Letter before it was shown or purchased by,
shown to or purchased by Steve Christensen. I covered myself in that regard by telling him
that people had seen it although I did not mention Mike Marquardt's name, but that Xeroxes
of it were available and that full transcripts were not available.

Q. How did Marquardt obtain a copy of the transcript?

A. The original by probably a Xerox of the Salamander Letter he saw at
my house and wrote down a few lines of its content.

Q. In other words, you gave him the transcript through
you?

A. He made the transcript through me, that's right.

(Hofmann's Confession, pages 480-481, 487-488)

Mr. Marquardt allowed us to obtain a copy of his extracts from the
Salamander letter, and it was these excerpts which were printed in the March 1984 issue of
the Salt Lake City Messenger. The portions of the letter which Marquardt copied
were, in fact, what led us to believe that the letter might be a forgery. As strange as it
may seem, our publication of portions of the Salamander letter in March 1984 almost caused
a serious altercation with Steven Christensen in federal court (see chapter 1 of Tracking, Christensen Couldn't Testify).
Mr. Christensen was very upset that we had cited anything from the letter and apparently
felt that we had obtained the extracts in an improper way. He, therefore, determined to
testify against us in the Ehat suitthe case which we finally won after it was
appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In reality, Steven Christensen did not have any
copyrightable interest in the Salamander letter. Furthermore, as we have shown, the
extracts we published were obtained by Michael Marquardt directly from Mark Hofmann before
Mr. Christensen purchased the letter. The extracts we printed certainly were not stolen.
Although Christensen appeared in court ready to testify against us, the Judge felt this
type of testimony was irrelevant to the case at hand and Christensen was unable to
testify.

Steven Christensen seems to have been thoroughly converted to the
Salamander letter. Instead of listening to the message of caution which we printed in the
March 1984 issue of the Messenger, he wanted to fight us in court. He continued
to believe in Mark Hofmann and his stories concerning the discovery of important Mormon
documents for more than a year. Although he seems to have eventually come to the
conclusion that Hofmann was involved in illegal activities, by this time it was too late.
It was Christensen's continued involvement with Hofmann which finally led to his untimely
death.

Mark Hofmann believed that the Salamander letter would pass any test
document experts could subject it to. Hofmann probably felt that favorable comments by
document experts would overweigh any criticism that we made of the document. In his
confession, pages 490, 493-495, Mr. Hofmann maintained that he encouraged Kenneth Rendell
to give the document a very rigorous examination:

Q. How did Rendell get involved? Is this a name you gave to Steve?

A. Yes, he was a name I mentioned. I considered him and I still do,
one of the best handwriting or autograph experts.

Q. Did you know in advance what Rendell would do to go about
attempting to authenticate it?

A. I had a pretty good idea what he would do or what was possible to
do. I told him to use every means possible to authenticate it, some of which tests he did
not think were necessary but I told him that in my opinion he did not understand, Rendell
did not understand the controversial nature of the document and we would be willing to
spent thousand of dollars in the authentication process.

Q. Why were you some concerned? Why were you almost helping to get it
authenticated? Was it something you wanted it to prove was authentic or something you
wanted to prove to yourself that you could be [beat?] the authenticators?

A. Well, before this time I had already felt confident I could be
[beat?] the authenticator as far as whatever tests would be done. I knew it was of a
controversial nature and would be questioned and I wanted to put down as much of that as
possible. In other words, to make it appear like the people questioning it were
questioning it not for rational reasons but because they didn't want to believe it.

Q. Was there anything in the testing procedure that was a surprise to
you or that you had not anticipated?

MR. YENGICH: That's a good question.

A. Only what was performed by the County Attorney's Office concerning
ink cracking.

. . . . .

Q. Were you aware basically through forensic tests or through document
analysis, basically they cannot prove a document is real or authentic. All that he can
basically say is we can find no evidence that it is a fake?

A. Yes.

Q. Yet it seemed that you were able to use that and turn it around as
if the people that authenticated the document. Was that something deliberate on your part
to change peoples perceptions kind of, of what forensic people can do?

A. That's what authentication is, is not being able to find out that
its not authentic.

Q. It seemed so many people, once it came back from the authentication
process say this proves it's authentic because they have now proved it's authentic. In
reality what they said was we can't prove it's not authentic.
What I'm saying is it seems a lot of people don't understand that, who
should understand that and I'm just wondering if you helped to convey that impression?

A. I might have, I don't know. I think to the same extent as far as
the ink cracking testing or whatever, that also does not prove conclusively that a
document is a forgery any more than the negative tests would prove that it is authentic,
but we can get in to that some other time.

In Tracking the White SalamanderI suggested that Mark Hofmann seemed to have been planting forged Martin Harris
signatures with the hope that they would be used in authenticating his more controversial
documents  i. e., the Salamander letter and the 116 missing pages of the Book of
Mormon which he was probably planning to forge. In Appendix
A of Tracking, I showed that he had forged an inscription which was claimed
to be in the handwriting of Martin Harris in a Book of Common Prayer. Document
experts charged that this inscription was a forgery. In his confession, page 501, Mark
Hofmann confirmed that the inscription attributed to Harris was a forgery:

A. My intention on that was both to provide further samples of Martin
Harris' handwriting and also to find a book with Martin Harris' handwriting in it. We
talked about that before as far as the one page, the inscription on one page was forged...
the page in Martin Harris' handwriting.

In Appendix A of Tracking,
I discussed another Martin Harris inscription in an early Book of Mormon which both Mark
Hofmann and Brent Metcalfe talked about. In his confession, page 499, Mr. Hofmann said
that "the Book of Mormon inscription was rumor that I had heard from other sources,
not that I had made up."